The invention relates to a swivel bracket for a marine drive unit, such as an outboard engine or the outboard drive portion of an inboard/outboard engine system, for boats, rafts and other marine vessels. More particularly, the invention pertains to a swivel bracket comprising two pieces which are capable of being separated from each other.
One type of outboard drive unit is attached to the hull of a marine vessel by a clamp bracket and an elongated swivel bracket secured to the clamp bracket by a tilt shaft that allows the drive unit to be selectively tilted downwardly into, or upwardly out of, the water. This type of swivel bracket is normally used on vessels having a high transom such as a sail boat.
Previous one piece swivel brackets have had certain disadvantages. Because of their length and one piece construction, such swivel brackets have been unable to reduce the difficulties in handling a typical drive drive unit, particularly in attaching the unit to, or detaching the unit from, the hull of a marine vessel.